March 2, 1944 Thursday

Dearest Honey,

Would like to talk about something else tonite, but all my world has only one topic at present – tank gunnery. Tomorrow we take our fabled “County Fair” exam, where we go from room to room disassembling and assembling all the weapons we have had, and doing innumerable other skills that we have supposedly absorbed to date. That is where all my energy is aimed, and, believe me, it is no sure thing that effort will bring success. It is a bigger version of the .75 exam we had. They tell us we all did extremely poor in that, tho we haven’t seen the result.

And today in tank crew drill I pulled a goof-off that probably will wreck my gig record. The affair was an accident, and could have happened to anybody – but it was me. In dismounting we fly out of the tank faster than anything, and while flying, I nicked my overshoes against the siren button and created a nice groan from it. Well, I didn’t think that would be worth anything more than a scowl and a caution, since noone had told us to beware of it, or even said where the siren was in a light tank. I see different now. There was no scowl, but an immediate turning in of my name to D&D for “not complying with orders.” How they dreamed that up I don’t know, but as worded it can bring any number of gigs. Which I shall appeal if there are too many. It’s such a silly thing that is makes me angry to see such wheels put into action. I shall stop it if I can.

Goodnite, Hon, and keep your fingers crossed. I love you – much more than tank gunnery.

Yours always,
Wallace